Two weekends ago, Syracuse tennis coach Mac Gifford watched one of his doubles teams win its flight of competition in the Maryland Invitational.

Last weekend another of his doubles teams came out on top.

‘The tournament [at Brown] went really well,’ Gifford said. ‘I was pleasantly surprised.’

Masha Kabanova and Shervin Saedinia highlighted the Orangewomen’s visit to Providence, R.I., this weekend for the Brown Invitational tournament by capturing the Flight A title. Last weekend, Daniela Kaluskova and Wei-Ming Leong accomplished the same feat in Flight B.

While SU doubles pairings had a second consecutive strong showing, the Orangewomen’s weak performances in singles play concerns for the coaching staff.

‘I’m worried about it,’ Gifford said. ‘We need to cut down on the unforced errors at critical situations. We need to make our opponent work for a point and not the other way. We can’t afford to be making the mistakes that we do at the critical points in the games.’

Luckily for Gifford, these fall competitions don’t count toward the team’s overall record and are mainly used to determine strengths and weaknesses.

‘Fall is always a time where we get to know our players, work with them coaching-wise, work doubles combinations,’ Gifford said. ‘[We get to] see how well we work on the road, see how well our athletes work under these adverse conditions.’

‘Our real season is in the spring,’ sophomore Kristine Bech Holte said, ‘so this is kind of just warm-up.’

Though fall practices and tournaments may be seen as just a warm-up, they could be necessary to improve Syracuse’s singles play. Singles needs to turn around by the spring if the Orangewomen hope to compete for the Big East title.

‘We’re conditioning a lot right now, so we can last longer on the court,’ Kabanova said. ‘We’re just working on stuff, and when we go out and play we try to improve on everything.’

The team has singles talent. Kabanova has performed strongly in her singles matches during fall tournaments, and Gifford is confident that freshman Leong will boost singles success.

‘Wei-Ming is a natural doubles player,’ Gifford said, ‘[but she] will be a force to be reckoned with in singles in the months to come. We work on our singles and we’re going to be tough.’

Staff writer Rob Howard contributed to this story.

Published on October 8, 2002 at 12:00 pm